The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
List Price:
Our Price: $4.98
You Save: $12.02 (71%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Michael ChabonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-08-25
ISBN: 0312282990
Number of pages: 639
Publisher: Picador
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780312282998
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Book Review: 3/4ths of the Great American Novel
Summary: 4 Stars
I started reading this book in February or March of 2003. For one reason or another I was only a couple of hundred pages into it when it was due back to the library. As is usual with me, I decided to give up reading it and turn it in, rather than recheck it. This is not a comment on the quality of the read, but rather a quirk in my own existense. I was fairly busy at the time and I figured that if I only made it through 200 pages in the first three weeks, another three weeks wouldn't get me to the end of this 636 paged tome. Finding it in the library here, I decided to pick it back up. I'm glad I did, and grateful I managed to finnish it this time.
Chabon has created a magical book. Slightly based on the history of the comic book, and partly a fictional account of a small group of Jews during the atrocities of Hitler. Though, as Chabon admits, he chooses to ignore facts and history as it suits his story. It is the story of the friendship between Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay. The story begins with Joe having fled Nazi run Prague for the comforts of his cousin, Sam's comfortable apartment in Brooklyn. They quickly become great friends and enter into the burgeoning comic book world.
Chabon writes beautifully crafted sentence that course forwards and bacwards through time to tell a multi-faceted story. His pen pauses in moments of time during the present and pulls the reader into a back story of Prague, the Kavaliers and comic books. Joe Kavalier's story is beautifully told, encompassing a stint as a magician and escape artists before travling from Prague to New York by way of Asia and California. The story of how Joe traveled to New York by way of a golem filled box is hilarious, frightening and poignant. For the first 2/3s of the book, Chabon's pen doesn't let the reader down from it's magnificent begining.
Yet it is about 2/3s of the way in, that the story begins to faulter. In an effort to tell a grand, epic story, Chabon treads beyond the beautifully told past, and magnificent present, into a less than glorious future. Seeing his characters rise from humble, troubled beginings to a stellar, triumphant present, only to have them fall again was a mistake. It's not so much the fall that hurts the story but the rushed way it is told. The novel moves at a slow pace, giving many sumpuous details and never minding to slip into the past for a revealing story. Yet, when it moves to the future it seems to force things along. You can feel the writer telling his story to point towards his final concluding point, rather than just allow the story to unfold. To really flesh out the future section he would have needed another few hundred pages. I would have preferred him to wrap up the story leaving out the future scenes. He does manage to salvage the conclusion and bring his characters into fully realized beings
Action & Adventure Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Action & Adventure Books
Polar Shiftby Paul Cussler Clive & Kemprecos
Penguin; Published: 2007; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.30
The Call of the Wild (Children's Classics)by Jack London
Penguin Audio; Published: 1997-08-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $11.00
Pelican Briefby John Grisham
Trafalgar Square; Published: 1993-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.19
Price in other shops:
Stardustby Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins; Published: 2008-12-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.47
Price in other shops:
Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)by Neal Stephenson
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2004-09-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.22
Price in other shops:
Sandstormby James Rollins
Harper; Published: 2005-04-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.50
Price in other shops:
No Man's Landby G.M. Ford
William Morrow; Published: 2005-06-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.50
Price in other shops:
Forever Odd - Signed Proofby Dean Koontz
Bantam; Published: 2005; Paperback; Book
Preyby Michael Crichton
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2003-08-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.95
Sharpe's Waterloo (Richard Sharpe's Adventure Series #20)by Bernard Cornwell
Harpercollins; Published: 1998-01-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.96
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Bound for Glory (Plume)by Woody Guthrie
Plume; Published: 1983-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.39
Price in other shops:
The Lonely Crowd, Revised edition: A Study of the Changing American Characterby David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, Reuel Denney
Yale University Press; Published: 2001-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.50
Price in other shops:
Huerfano: A Memoir of Life in the Countercultureby Roberta Price
University of Massachusetts Press; Published: 2006-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.19
Price in other shops:
Tinkersby Paul Harding
Bellevue Literary Press; Published: 2009-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.87
Price in other shops:
Digital Photography: A Basic Manualby Henry Horenstein
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2011-11-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.06
Price in other shops:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Geniusby Dave Eggers
Vintage; Published: 2001-02-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.96
Price in other shops:
Netherland (Vintage Contemporaries)by Joseph O'Neill
Vintage; Published: 2009-05-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.95
Price in other shops:
Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Characterby Jonathan Shay
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1995-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.96
Price in other shops:
Wonder Boys: A Novelby Michael Chabon
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2008-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.98
Price in other shops:
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel (P.S.)by Michael Chabon
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.25
Price in other shops: